Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Pink Thread Of Silk ❯ Dog Fight ( Chapter 5 )

Pink Thread of Silk

 

Chapter 5: Dog Fight

 

“How long are you planning on keeping her here?” The silver haired ninja asked as he propped himself up against the wall of the dimly lit room that the Uchiha in front of him called his study. There were no other souls in the room apart from the two men that seemed deep in discussion.

 

“How ever long it takes to lure my brother here,” The Uchiha replied his tone of voice emotionless and if Sakura could hear it now, her thoughts on family resemblance would have been proved right again.

 

“Is it true?” Kakashi asked, hoping he wouldn't have to add anymore to that and the youngest Uchiha would understand him. But to his dismay, Sasuke offered no light on the subject. “That you're planning to settle down?”

 

Sasuke smirked. If there was one thing at that very moment that he hated almost as much as his brother, was the thought of a wife. He had no intension of getting married, he was planning on getting a woman pregnant then stealing the child once it was born, raise it as the Uchiha that it would be. However indecent it may have seemed to anyone else, almost shockingly uncivilized, to the Uchiha genius, it was all in a days work. Sasuke had no intention of keeping any woman around him longer than it took to get her pregnant.

 

Kakashi noticed the dark look on his former students face and took that as an answer to his question, a big fat `no'. This didn't surprise him in the least; it would have surprised him more to hear that he was indeed settling down.

 

“Have you found a woman of your liking?” Kakashi continued. It wasn't that he was all that interested in the Uchiha's private life, though he guessed he would be the only one to hear any of it from the lips of Sasuke himself. But he wasn't a gossiper and he didn't like to intrude on private and useless information. This he needed to know though.

 

Sasuke nodded slowly after a moments thought, he then opened his mouth to speak but the words didn't come out. Both ninja's eyes turned to the fusuma doors and both stood in silence as they waited for the person on the other side to either enter, or move away. To Kakashi's slight annoyance they had decided to enter.

 

The door slid open to reveal a head of blonde in a pretty powder blue kimono; she bowed down low and addressed both men inside. “Sire, the food is getting cold and the men seek your companionship,” she said before slowly getting to her feet, letting all the years of geisha training ease her slight nerves.

 

“Ino, you do know you don't have to be so formal with us right?” Kakashi commented as he pushed himself off the wall.

 

“Just sticking to character.” The blonde geisha smirked and winked at the older nin who rolled his eyes. “How long are we going to keep her in the dark like this?” Ino dove deep into the waters she shouldn't have been swimming in, but she was slowly starting to like the rose haired woman, and she knew, the longer she was planning on sticking with Sasuke, the worse it would end up on her.

 

Ino never in her life wanted to get stuck in a raging, fight to the death war between the two Uchiha brothers like Sakura was now. She understood that it could only lead to pain, if only her new friend could see that too. But even if she did, what could she do?

 

“For however long I decide to,” Sasuke said in a cold voice, he had never liked Ino that much, ever since they were kids she had practically stalked him to death and it had pissed him off to the point where he had to beat the shit out of the rest of her team for her to start hating him back. “Keep you mouth shut Ino, or I will make you regret it.”

 

“Sasuke,” Kakashi started but only got that far.

 

“Big words, if only you could live up to half of the ones that crawl out of your filthy mouth,” Ino snapped narrowing her eyes at the Uchiha.

 

But Sasuke seemed to take it all in his stride, the snide remarks he was slowly getting used to, and he preferred them than the constant lovey looks he was receiving from the same blonde ninja only a few months back.

 

The other two ninja only watched as the Uchiha stood slowly from his seat behind the kotatsu table and made his way towards the door Ino was standing by. “Just remember what I said Ino, you wouldn't want to face the fatal consequences of any bad actions, now would you?”

 

Ino chose and rightfully to, to stay silent. She merely followed, with the older jounin at her side as Sasuke led the way back to the party.

 

***

 

“What cccccc-country are you fff-from?” Came the slurred question of a man at least three times her own age. But Sakura took it all as a days work, she forced a smile on her face as she poured another cup of sake into the small dish, though her own judgement screamed for her to stop before the man was too drunk out of his skull to know what actions he could take with the rose haired woman, and what he definitely couldn't.

 

“From the cloud country, have you ever been sire?” Sakura was starting to get bored of this, her target for mission `eye candy' had disappeared somewhere, along with the silver haired nin who had brought her here and Ino. She would have been suspicious had she not known that the youngest Uchiha was Kakashi's former student and if she hadn't learnt over the short space of time, to trust Ino, who she considered her friend.

 

“Maaany tiiimes,” The white haired man answered as he shot down the freshly poured sake drink. Her eyes turned to the only other face she knew in the room and watched as Temari poured sake for two men who looked decent enough. Sakura was starting to think she had no luck in this business, first to get captured by the Satan reincarnated, only to then be taken to his sibling and now serving a hermit who would still make a pass at her though she was nowhere near his age.

 

Just as Sakura was beginning to contemplate the consequences of take out her secret dagger a slitting the throats of half the men in the room before fleeing, her target, followed by two friendly faces, returned to the room and Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. The old man, she had caught on before as being named Jiraya was babbling away at her side, but Sakura no longer had any interest in listening to him, so she blocked out all his words and merely gazed innocently at the younger Uchiha.

 

He was handsome… oh who was she kidding, he was hot! He was sexy; everything a woman could look for looks wise. She didn't quite understand how his parents could have gotten it so right with both of their kids. It was almost intoxicating, watching him talk, move and react to the situations around him. But Sakura guessed that looks came at a price, a very high slash in their personalities.

 

Out of nowhere she seemed to start contemplating her plan. Now that she thought about it rationally, she would be lucky to slice her own throat in a room filled with ninja let alone one of theirs, even if they were half dead from alcohol consumption.

 

Her apple green eyes turned from a blonde ninja who took an unsteady seat beside the snow haired drunk she had been serving. He looked around her age, probably matching the age of her target. His clear blue eyes had caught her attention for a moment, but her head was too filled with what she had yet to do.

 

“Sakura-chan?” Her head almost snapped to the side had she not remembered she was a geisha and all her actions had to be graceful, neat and tidy. Sakura turned her head to find Kakashi staring at her, she could tell his was smiling by his eyes and she had also noticed that he was sitting beside Uchiha Sasuke, and his attention seemed to be fully on her as well.

 

Now she was screwed. However awkward it was talking to Kakashi, it would be a million times worse when it came to talking to Satan's sibling. But Sakura, as always couldn't see any way out, so as always, she was trapped with an unpredictable life line.

 

The rose haired woman stood slowly, apologising as best she could, and enough for the two men before her to understand, that she would be leaving them before making her slow way towards the table of doom. Sakura kneeled, bowing slowly to both men and offering a small smile to Kakashi who had been practically beaming at her.

 

“Sakura-chan here is a very famous geisha in the cloud country,” Sakura breathed a mental sigh of relief. At least she could trust the silver haired nin to remember and stick to the story they had made up before hand.

 

“Is that so?” Sasuke said slowly, his gaze not leaving the woman's form for a second as he inspected her stature, her figure and the way she held herself in his presence. Sasuke was no fool, he understood that women found him good looking; he also knew that both men and women found him unnerving a slightly chilling considering that his life mission was to kill his own flesh and blood. That in turn reminds you his own flesh and blood managed to kill the whole of the rest of his clan. It seemed to get from bad to worse in his family.

 

“You give me too much credit sire,” Sakura replied calmly though inside she was shaking with nerves. She herself couldn't believe how well she was pulling it off, it was as if her body was moving with no need of the brains help which was trapped in its own little nervous breakdown world.

 

“Oh no, I only give credit where it's due,” Sakura couldn't understand why Kakashi was acting so strange, when they were travelling she couldn't make him say more than four words to her, yet here he was dishing compliments as if he loved everything about her.

 

“Have you got a Danna?” Sakura felt like she had slammed against a brick wall then another slammed into her back. Why was he asking this? He couldn't be thinking of offering to be after such a short period of time, and even if he was, she couldn't accept, Itachi would slaughter her.

 

“Yes sire,” Sakura said lightly, though she didn't know what she would do if he asked who he was.

 

It was almost as if Kakashi had read her mind because shortly after her muttered comment he added in. “He's a very rich ninja in the cloud country, takes very good care of her.”

Sasuke almost smirked at how well this was all playing out. He wouldn't lie and say the woman in front of him wasn't alluring, that she wasn't something different from the usual one track loved up women that he was accustomed to. But he also couldn't see just what his brother had been so addicted to, so drugged over to risk his life for.

 

It had been about a year ago that he and his brother had last met and it had left scars on mostly his own body like usual. But something had changed about his brother, he wasn't as invincible as he made out he was when Sasuke was younger. In all his years of risking his life to be the avenger of his family, Sasuke finally had a chance, a hope. I pink thread of silk kept him tied to his future, though Sasuke wasn't sure how strong and how long she was and could last.

 

Sasuke locked his eyes with hers. She was going to be more then a ticket to his brother, she was going to be the ticket to the end.

 

“Excuse me, I must meet with my other guests.” Sasuke said confidently, his eyes not leaving the trained orbs of the geisha before him. She could hide her fear well, she could hide all her emotions well, but Sasuke could still see right through her.

 

Sakura bowed as the raven haired nin stood and made his way deeper into the sea of guests who talked amongst each other, sake spilling in all directions as her fellow geisha tried to keep them under control.

 

Sakura let out a breath of relief, her apple green orbs closing as she seemed to relax.

 

“Well done, I didn't think he would bite the apple that easily,” Sakura's head instantly snapped up and her eyes focused on Kakashi before once again breathing out a sigh of relief. She had forgotten he was there. Kakashi put two thumbs up at her before turning one thumb to point at his empty sake cup.

 

Sakura smiled softly at how completely common this man was, he might be a great ninja and the sensei of an Uchiha, but in character he was something completely else, a true person. Picking up the sake pot Sakura realised that maybe this wouldn't be as dangerous as she thought it would be in the beginning. She had Kakashi, she had Ino and Temari, so maybe this would all blow over and then, she could run away.

 

***

 

Kakashi walked down the dark alleys of the town that he called home, the town that he was supposedly working against, for him, to protect her. It was weird to him that he always somehow got the worst missions, the ones that involved him using unwillingly his emotions. He hated it, because every time he cared that person or whatever made him care would be quickly taken from him and never given back.

 

The silver haired nin was confused, why had Tsunade wanted him on this exact mission? Why did he have to work with a former student? Kakashi didn't have anything against Sasuke… well not much anyway. But he knew that whatever the Uchiha was involved it meant trouble for everyone around him.

 

Kakashi also knew that trouble would sooner rather than later in the current situation come and bite Sasuke in the butt as well as the rest of them.

 

The silver haired nin looked up at the dark night sky, the clouds ahead raging, fighting their own battle as droplets of rain splattered on his flawless face. Kakashi's one open eye closed and he stood in the middle of the alley and tried his best to get rid of the one thought that had been pestering him for months now.

 

The cherry blossom.

 

She was the main reason Kakashi didn't want to be on this mission, he was fine in putting his life in danger, he was fine with knowing he wouldn't stand a chance in a full on battle with her captor. But he wasn't fine about caring for her, caring for her enough to get hurt if something happen to her.

 

Her death after all was inevitable.

 

However much Itachi seemed to be addicted to her, he had no power on her life. In his care she would sooner or later take her own life. And even if she did escape, her past has too many ties and Itachi has too many enemies. She would be dead before she could look at another man or at anything really.

 

Her life was tied to the Uchiha family, they controlled her fait and Kakashi didn't want any part in it.

 

The silver haired nin hammered and the alley wall as he tried to let the rain that ran from his hair to his face settle his own raging emotions, just as the sky he was standing under. Thunder rumbled above him, protesting against the assault of the lightning as it sparked illuminating the nin's face for only a second.

 

But for some reason, just like months ago when he had first laid his onyx eye on her, he couldn't get her out of his head. She had been through as much shit in her life as he had, they had both suffered and deep in his soul he could almost feel that she could understand him like no other person, no other woman.

 

Kakashi knew though, that he couldn't risk it. She was too involved in the situation and knowing Sasuke, he would only make matters worse.

 

`But maybe you could save her' He thought to himself then almost laughed at how stupid that thought was. He could never save anyone he cared about; all that he cares for will die. It was ironic that she was the next on his care list and already she had a death warrant implanted on her forehead.

 

Cherry blossom hair flashed in his mind, cherry rose lips, apple green eyes, her lithe figure. Why of all the women he had met in his life did he have to become to wrapped up in the dead woman walking?

 

He hadn't even had a proper conversation with her, only ever watched her from afar, knowing and fearing her judgement of him. It was so not like him to be like this, normally he wouldn't think twice about what others though of him. But her judgement meant everything to him. He had acted like a schoolboy for her, combing his hair so it wasn't too messy and didn't completely stick out in all directions. He had even contemplated on brushing his teeth twice one morning, but then decided against it as it may show he was trying to hard for a missing-nin living in the wild with no roof above his head.

 

He wasn't all too fussed about her knowing he was Sasuke's teacher, it showed he had a normal life before he turned `evil' as she should think and turned on the village he was currently strolling through. After all, even Itachi had a normal childhood, though he did ruin it for his brother.

 

Kakashi's sensitive hearing picked up movement to his left and his head snapped up from resting on the brick wall he had been hammering to try and vent his emotional frustration. His hands still held in fists, he backed away from the wall and looked around him. His senses as usual, at their best.

 

It would probably be a stray cat wondering the night streets, or maybe Naruto getting lost after getting drunk at the party, though Kakashi then reasoned, that that would be a lot louder.

 

But nothing came to give a plausible explanation to the very strong feeling of someone watching him very intently. No cat could give this kind of aura out and Kakashi had a feeling that he had felt it before, though he berated himself for not being able to remember just quite where.

 

Slowly he took out a kunai from the pouch on his hip and as it shone menacingly in the faint light of the mood behind the dark clouds and rain splattered onto it, Kakashi's hold on it only tightened.

 

He slowly walked out of the alley, whoever this person was, they definitely weren't good news and he had a duty to take them as far away from the village and civilians as is physically possible, even if it is as a corpse.

 

Kakashi was glad that whoever this was, they were following him, as soon as the silver haired nin reached the exit gate of the town he flipped the kunai in his hand and tensed his muscles, jumping into the closest tree he formulated a plan of action.

 

The silver haired nin hid in the camouflage that the tree offered him, it was dark, the only light coming faintly from the moon but mostly from random lightning sparks. Kakashi instantly knew that being in a tree wasn't the smartest idea he had had that day. Though nothing seemed to be going his was lately.

 

Slipping the bandana he had wrapped to hide his sharingan Kakashi inspected the area. The enemy was close, very close and the more his sharingan got to work the more it seemed to point to one place. A small clearing a little more than eight meters away. Stealthily he slipped onto another tree with a full view of the clearing that was hidden from him by his only protection.

 

Kakashi breath hitched in his throat at what he saw. He hadn't been expecting this, but it was all starting to make sense in his head. Itachi couldn't trust him completely, what missing-nin could truly trust another?

 

Two slit like eyes gazed up at him from the clearing, a smirk plastered on the thin and pale lips of a sickly pale nin that had always offered no warmth to the onyx eyed nin. Jumping wearily from the tree, kunai still held firmly in his grip, he addressed the nin in his usual emotionless voice.

 

“Itachi sent you?” He asked, it was more a statement than a question.

 

“Well what a smart ninja you are,” Orochimaru replied, his smirk not wavering in the least.

 

“The woman's safe, she's met the junior Uchiha and the plan is in full course.” Kakashi continued not bothered by the snide remark.

 

“I know,” The snake like tongue slipped out of the lips of its owner and slithered in the moist night air. The lightning above the two, well one man and one monster lit up the clearing. The eyes of the monster before him seemed to only look more evil and demonic the more light was offered to them. “I'm here to warn you.”

 

Kakashi's silver brow arched in questioning. A warning?

 

“Stay away from Uchiha property or I may just have to make you regret it.” Orochimaru said, his tongue darting out once he had finished and his smirk only widening. He would kill the silver haired nin anyway, but hands had to be kept off of the Uchiha woman. He would have a better excuse to kill the nin before him though, if he did go against the rules of his boss.

 

“As far as I know, I haven't laid a finger on her.” Kakashi was mentally kicking himself. He couldn't believe someone had noticed his feeling towards the rose haired woman. Most of all, the evil butt licking weasel like Orochimaru who would use any excuse to kill him.

 

This was another factor that Kakashi knew was inevitable. Either he or Orochimaru would die in the near future, it hadn't been decided as to whom, but time would tell and Kakashi had no plans as to finishing his life quite just yet.

 

“This is a warning Kakashi, you touch her and forget about taking another breath.” Orochimaru jumped onto the branch of tree close by. “Remember canine, I'm watching you, so be a good boy or else you wont like the punishment.”

 

He disappeared into the leaves of the trees, his aura disappearing further and further away. Kakashi stood still, the water rolling down his face and dripping off the tip of his nose. This was bad to say the least and Kakashi had to sort his head out before he could see the cherry blossom again, or he may regret giving Orochimaru an easy invitation to a fight to the death.

 

His hold on the kunai tightened as he wrung his arm and threw the kunai at the tree Orochimaru had jumped into, the wood splintering from the force of the impact. The war and everything Kakashi wanted to stay away from, was haunting and chasing him. He had option anymore…

 

…he had to fight.